What’s in it for me? Learn what drove Elon Musk to the pinnacle of success

From SolarCity to Tesla, Musk’s companies are unified.
Musk’s star power stems from three ventures simultaneously: SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. This is because they all ultimately help him pursue his real, and unifying, goal: the survival of the human species.
Musk had long wanted to go into solar, but prior to creating SpaceX, he hadn’t thought there was any money in it. So when his cousins, the Rive brothers, were brainstorming about a new venture, Musk suggested solar.
The brothers spent two years studying the solar-power industry before hitting upon their idea. Though solar panels were slowly becoming more affordable, the cost and effort of installation was enough to drive many consumers away. So the Rive brothers decided to give customers what they really wanted: someone to take care of the whole process, from selection to purchasing to installation.
Musk helped his cousins come up with the structure and became the chairman and largest shareholder. Six years later, and SolarCity has become the largest installer of solar panels in the US, living up to its goal of making solar panel installation painless. It’s expanded from individual customers to businesses like Walmart and Intel and, in 2014, it was valued at close to $7 billion.
Musk’s businesses, while successful individually, also strategically complement each other. Tesla makes battery packs that SolarCity can sell to end customers, and SolarCity supplies Tesla’s charging stations with solar panels.
This is because, despite being passionate about cars and solar panels and batteries, they are all just side projects for Musk. His main goal remains to ensure that humans start living sustainably now so that humanity has a future. In this way, all his endeavors are united by one ambitious goal.


Musk aims to further transform the aerospace, automotive and solar industries with the Hyperloop and other projects.
Musk has always had grand plans – so grand that people often find them a little far-fetched. In August, 2013, he unveiled more of these plans: the Hyperloop, as well as other developments at Tesla and SpaceX.
The Hyperloop is a new mode of transportation for fairly short distances. It’s a large-scale pneumatic tube, just like the ones used to send mail around offices, but, in this case, it’s for transporting people and cars in pods.
Similar ideas have been proposed before, but Musk’s is different. His design runs under low pressure, while the pods float on a bed of air. Each pod is thrust forward by an electromagnetic pulse, and motors throughout the tube give the pods an added power-boost when needed.
These solar-powered mechanisms could keep pods going at 800 miles per hour; at that speed, you could get from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes.
For Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has other plans. Tesla’s primary focus in 2015 will be bringing the SUV Model X to the market. Then, planned for 2017, is the highly anticipated Model 3. This car will cost just $35,000, instead of over $100,000 – the price of a typical Model S.
In 2014, Musk also announced plans to build a Gigafactory, the world’s largest lithium-ion manufacturing facility. That will increase the batteries available in the marketplace, a crucial part of the strategy to make Tesla cars driveable over long distances, even without access to a recharging station.
In the near future, SpaceX will begin testing its ability to take people into space. SpaceX aims to perform a manned test flight by 2016, and to fly astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA in the following year.
SpaceX is also likely to move into building and selling satellites, one of the most lucrative areas in the industry. Musk is reportedly daydreaming about perhaps becoming the first man to set foot on Mars!